106 Our Patent Laws. [January, 



However, there is still the real difficulty — what is an 

 invention ? One man makes an invention as described in 

 the volume ; another crushes him by manufacturing 300 

 specimens at a time instead of one. If the first man's 

 patent is held good, the delay of the second for 14 years 

 may be a great loss to the country. Would it not, in such 

 a case as this, be fair to compel the second to pay a sort 

 of royalty to the first ? 



Many of these difficulties that have oppressed the bar 

 would be easily removed by a tribunal of common sense. 

 Could the lawyers not invent such a tribunal ? 



We admire a judge against whose opinion an Act of 

 Parliament was brought. He replied, "What! am I to 

 put the young man in a position that will almost certainly 

 ruin him merely because of an Act of Parliament." It is 

 such judges as this last that we think able to do justice by 

 the use of common sense. Is there no hope of obtaining 

 for them freedom of action. 



We must now for a moment revert to that frequent 

 assertion that inventions rise up in various places at the 

 same time; the argument seems to be that nothing is lost to 

 humanity by the loss of an individual mind. This, we 

 think, would not be asserted by any of the men who have 

 spoken on patents. They would be afraid to see the actual 

 meaning of their own words. But if men will rush upon 

 great problems of psychology and history without considera- 

 tion, we can expect only a superficial result. If we look at 

 the subject from the narrow field of the daily patent lists 

 only, we may imagine that so many minds are occupied that 

 nothing can be lost ; but if we look on the history of invention, 

 we come to a different opinion. 



There are obvious conclusions drawn by several 

 individuals at a time, many of such patents we should be 

 glad to get rid of entirely, but good sound inventions come 

 rarely to more than one mind at a time. 



It is to the individual that Nature and Providence give 

 the rich, rare gifts that advance humanity. The history of 

 the few has been the history of human progress, and a lost 

 thought may roll for ages through creation without finding 

 a mind to comprehend it or a brain to make it useful to 

 society. 



